


these moving parts

by Rynezion



Series: invisible machinery [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Zevran POV, also vaguely follows the progression of the Alistair romance but only if you squint, vaguely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 15:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynezion/pseuds/Rynezion
Summary: He watches them fall in love with the inevitability of the tides turning. He watches Alistair’s puppy love adoration grow deep and honest and desperate in the face of battle and the rush towards an ending that looks less hopeful by every passing hour, watches the Warden push him away again and again in an attempt to remain untethered in the scramble for what’s to come.Zevran isn’t blind to how he’s stuck in between. He knows himself well enough to see his weakness for strong and beautiful things, and no matter how he fights it in the wake of what chased him here all the way from Antiva, he falls hard and fast.-Zevran watches from afar, Alistair is stuck between a war and a crown he doesn't want and Iraine carries too much of it, alone.





	these moving parts

**Author's Note:**

> Once every year or so I get so overwhelmed with feelings for something that I _have to _sit down and spit it out or else I'd probably explode. This, well, I guess you can call it an AU has been bugging my brain pretty much since I accidentally started romancing poor Alistair in Origins (that man is SO easy to romance holy shit) and after painting a bunch of stuff for it, it spiralled into this.__
> 
> __  
> _Thank you Dea for letting me scream at you about all of this._  
>  __  
>  __  
> [art for this series](http://rynezion.tumblr.com/tagged/invisible-machinery)  
>   
> 

He watches them fall in love with the inevitability of the tides turning. He watches Alistair’s puppy love adoration grow deep and honest and desperate in the face of battle and the rush towards an ending that looks less hopeful by every passing hour, watches the Warden push him away again and again in an attempt to remain untethered in the scramble for what’s to come.

Zevran isn’t blind to how he’s stuck in between. He knows himself well enough to see his weakness for strong and beautiful things, and no matter how he fights it in the wake of what chased him here all the way from Antiva, he falls hard and fast.

In a Crow’s life, short and unforgiving, that’s the only way to love.

There are touches between the two of them, absent and unaware - hands picking grass and mud off scuffed plate armor, shoulders bumping on the road and knees sitting around the campfire. Fingers on the Warden’s shoulder as she recounts their slow and bitter fight through the Circle Tower, purging monsters wearing the faces of people she must have loved despite her resentment of how they were treated and treated each other in turn. She doesn’t talk about it often, but he understands that there was little warmth in her childhood, little trust in the friendships that pushed through the rubble of all of it and the betrayal that broke that trust in the end. 

All of that is, after all, achingly familiar. 

It’s Alistair’s hand - broad, used to holding swords and shields and callouses, and how she leans into it without thinking - that is his undoing. He wants to walk around the fire and burrow himself into the space between them. He wants to stand up, turn around and walk into the darkness, walk all the way back to the Waking Sea and never look back.

He turns to Leliana instead and asks for another one of her stories. They slip into the rhythm of comfortable banter and innuendo that makes Alistair blush and pull his hand back to himself, makes Wynne cry out in mock outrage and the Sten to look at them all with vague disapproval. The Warden says nothing, simply watches him through the flames of their campfire and lifts her hand absently to her shoulder which must be colder in the absence of that large, comforting hand.

They don’t talk about it. 

The road towards Redcliffe is littered with bandits and darkspawn, their stench never quite clearing from the air. Leliana is loudly counting down the miles until their arrival at the castle and the promise of a _real bath_ \- he can’t say he doesn’t understand, with how hard blood is to wash off with only rain and river water. He should know - blood is, after all, a vital part of his chosen profession, and getting it out of clothing and off skin is one of the first important lessons he has learned, way back when.  

As it happens, it’s not steaming tubs of scented water that awaits them in Redcliffe but news of dead that don’t stay dead, an Arl that doesn’t wake and a boy who’s lost in a dream of his own doing. The Warden’s mouth pulls tight as she promises the terrified crowd their strength and her magic, the sun goes down and they walk and burn and burn and burn.

 

-

 

He doesn’t see the corpse rising to it’s feet behind him. It’s dark and he’s tired, so tired.

 

-

 

 _“You can call me Iraine” - he can see her purposefully push past her suspicion as she reaches out to help him up, ropes coiling around their feet. The warrior hovering a few paces behind her gives him a look of stubborn distrust. There are others, too, but his attention is taken up by the woman in front of him - fast, deadly with her staff and her fire and the Fade that she pushed into his men to rip them apart from the inside out only minutes before - she gives him a kind smile, and he finds it impossible to resent her for giving him his life back, for taking advantage of his last minute cowardice, the instinct to flee death again._  

_He takes hold of the hand in front of him and pulls himself to his feet._

 

-

Zevran wakes with the taste of elfroot and the lingering feeling of unfamiliar magic on his tongue. Muddy water is seeping through the gaps in his armor, but his head rests on something softer - he cracks an eye open and is greeted with the glow of fires and the Warden’s face in sharp relief, mud and blood and soot smeared on her skin. Through the haze of exhaustion he can see Alistair’s shield planted in front of the two of them, feathered ends of arrows pointing towards the sky. 

“Wynne-” 

“Go. I’ve got him.”

There is a flutter of fingers against his skin, a shadow at the edge of his vision and then there is only the smell of burning he carries all the way into the dreams that follow.

 

-

 

By morning the corpses stop coming and the village is saved. The names of those who didn’t survive are called out from the steps of the Chantry, people mouthing the words of the prayer in shared grief and comfort. He can see Alistair’s lips moving over the heads of the crowd. The Warden’s hand is resting on the warrior’s arm and they share a look before she is called to speak for them again - Zevran thinks about Rinna’s words about the many different loves people share, and watches her speak through gritted teeth, hope rolling off her tongue like honey. 

It’s easy to lose track of them in the flurry of activity that follows. There are corpses to be dragged from the streets, railings and windows and fortifications to repair, elfroot potions to drink despite his best efforts to avoid Wynne’s persistent nagging, and he moves through it all with all the efficiency he can muster. He lifts and pushes and hammers and laughs, trades quips with Leliana and teases Morrigan until sundown comes again. There is food around a campfire, and somebody procures a bottle of wine that doesn’t taste like piss from a long forgotten corner of the inn’s cellar. He could _kiss_ them. He _would_ kiss them if the thought didn’t make him look across the fire to see the Warden watching him and the careful distance between her and Alistair.  

The sight of that space is just as unbearable as it’s absence.

 

-

 

They burn their way through the castle the very next day only to find themselves face to face with an impossible choice - blood magic and sacrifice, or the death of a child whose only sin was to be born a mage. The Warden’s face crumbles under the weight of it. She stares at the man they freed from the cellar - his name is Jowan, and if his instincts are right, he is the source of that one regret she never speaks of but which weighs on her heaviest of all. “There is another way,” the man says, hesitant.

She straightens her back, lifts her chin and marches them back to the place she spent so many months carefully avoiding, asks for help from the people who pushed her out first, her family despite it all. She walks into the Fade without looking back and when it is done, she pushes her way past soldiers and knights and Connor and the Arlessa until the door bangs shut behind her and there is only silence left.

 

-

 

The name of the space between Iraine and Alistair is Maric Theirin, the shape of it is the promise of a crown, the reluctance to take it and the necessity of doing so.

She comes to him after they made peace between the dalish and the werewolves, the blood of their Keeper still crusted under his fingernails and in the grooves of her staff. He teases and prods and talks about everything and nothing until he makes her smile and they sit together as the fire dies, her weight warm against his shoulder and her laughter brittle, but genuine. Still, Zevran doesn't miss the way her eyes drift towards Alistair’s dark tent every now and again, how she rubs a small, cheap looking amulet between her fingers and he pushes her gently, inch by inch towards where she’s most wanted. 

She kisses his forehead and smiles before disappearing behind the tent walls he so desperately wants to be behind himself. Many different loves, he thinks. Some loves are simply harder to carry than others. 

Needling Leliana into another song isn’t terribly difficult, and if his efforts in drawing Morrigan closer to their fire are half-hearted at best, nobody calls him out for it.

 

-

 

They don’t talk about the Deep Roads and the rose he finds Alistair staring at one morning by the river, sunlight soft in his straw coloured hair. He starts and looks at Zevran as if to say something, but he slips back into the woods before he can speak.

 

-

 

The touching after is - new. Fingers on his hand in passing, a clap on his shoulder after a scuffle, bodies leaning into him around the campfire and the space as it morphs into a shape they seem bent on filling with him. Without words, seemingly without intent, only with offers to help with mending his armor and a bunch of carefully cut poisonous plants somebody’s left in front of his tent that fills the gap in his rapidly depleting stores, a pair of soft Antivan leather boots and Iraine smiling, determined, through the mess that is Haven and Redcliffe, again. 

Then arl Eamon wakes up and it all goes to hell. 

Alistair and Iraine march through the political madness of Denerim clinging to each other in the face of the end looming closer and closer, with him two steps behind them, watching, always watching. He sees their love turn from desperate to bitter and hopeless, the wedge that drives between them in the wake of her choices and the options in front of them that seem to shrink further and further as time goes and ploys play out one after another.

He doesn’t see Taliesen coming. That the Crows would send someone eventually? Yes. But him? No. Not him. His face and his words dredge up memories he spent years running from, _many kinds of love, Zevran_ and the offer to go home, to be whole again hangs in the air between them, Iraine and her new family on one side, him in the middle. 

Always in the middle. 

Alistair’s hand slips from the pommel of his sword, his face is open, earnest. Zevran reaches for a dagger - sometimes he feels like he’s all made up of daggers, knives and blades on top of one another, twisting and turning and tearing and prodding and making everything around him bleed. 

The dagger buries itself into Taliesen’s shoulder.

The sound of blood rushing in his ear drowns out everything else.

 

-

 

_It’s not too late! Anyone can make a mistake. You can still come back._

 

-

 

Iraine pries the bottle from his hand and Alistair closes the curtains, he’s being gathered into arms that seem to multiply as somebody carries him to the bed, two warm bodies curling around him and his blankets and pillows and daggers. There are fingers in his hair, the rhythm of the motion soothing. She sings something in elvish and Alistair’s breath warms the nape of his neck and his fingers curl around his own and he slips away like that, through the haze of the Antivan brandy he nicked from the cellar and the warmth of an embrace he thinks is probably a drunken daydream.

It doesn’t feel like a daydream. Every time he wakes with a cry, there is a hand on him, a voice in his ear, an arm that tightens around him and whispers comfort. He considers what he would have missed if he died on the crossroads like he was supposed to, like he wanted to.

For the first time in what feels like years, he allows himself to be glad he’s still breathing.

 

-

 

She kills Loghain herself. Alistair is king. The conversation between the three of them is short, a painful understanding - she doesn’t question and doesn’t beg, but smoothes her palm on Alistair’s face in a gesture of such intimacy and love, Zevran’s heart is alight with it. Alistair turns to him and leans against his shoulder. They take a minute to cling to each other in this dark corner of Ferelden’s Royal Palace, one minute before the Blight rushes in to take them towards an uncertain end, and Zevran wants to break something, burn something, stuff something so full of daggers whatever it was before dissolves into nothing. 

He supposes an archdemon will have to do.

Then there is the march towards Redcliffe, the absence of a darkspawn army and a meeting with Riordan that leaves Iraine pale and rigid, Alistair shaking to kick something - the wall, a door, a table - with a shout. He wraps himself around Zevran despite it all while she slips away with Morrigan, then comes back with a face that looks like death itself. 

What follows is the most wretched conversation of them all. 

What follows is Alistair disappearing behind Morrigan’s door while Iraine cries her eyes red against Zevran’s chest.

What follows is a morning where they don’t talk, just buckle belts and armor in place, tuck daggers into hidden pockets and vials of lyrium into satchels and swords onto backs and shields onto arms. 

What follows is another march, Denerim in flames and on top of it all - a dragon and an army, waiting.

She can’t take him with them, she says. He can barely hear her through his anger. “I need Leliana… I need as many who can attack from afar as I can, and I need Wynne, and I need Alistair because…” - her gaze swipes right at Riordan who’s looking away, eyes already distant and ready for the _sacrifice_ that has to follow. Zevran spits and curses and lets them go. He crowds Morrigan against a wall and promises hell if what she cooked up doesn’t work. She says nothing. There is a battle to fight, and he throws himself at it with all the focus and anger he has left in him.

Anger, it seems, never seems to run out today.

 

-

 

He feels rather than sees it. There is a break in the rhythm of the fight, the tension in the air seems to lift and the darkspawn all pause for a moment like puppets with their strings broken all at once. He thinks he’s ought to know it somehow, if they’re both alive or dead, he thinks that’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re in love. He abandons the gate and the fleeing enemy, misses Morrigan slipping into the shadows and runs, runs towards them through the fatigue and the pain of his injuries. 

She’s on the ground, head cradled in Alistair’s hands, burn marks crawling up her arms in angry slashes. Their foreheads are pressed together. Neither of them move apart from the heave of Alistair’s chest as he takes deep breath after deep breath, and suddenly it feels as if all the air from the world is gone, all that’s left is choking on ash and smoke and blood.

Alistair looks up. His eyes crinkle at the corner as he smiles and lifts an arm, Iraine’s eyes peeking out from behind all the fabric and plate and dirt and all the noise and colour and smell of the world comes rushing back, all at once.

 

-

 

_Denerim, six months later_

 

-

 

“We’ll see each other soon,” Iraine says as she pulls her hood over her braids, new Warden Commander armor hidden under the cloak she still wears even after all this time (and despite all their best efforts). Alistair looks strangely out of place without his battered armor and shield. His new, kingly wardrobe carries a lot more ruffles and a lot less iron and leather than he’s used to, the issue of his safety now a concern of the honour guard he didn’t manage to evade even this morning - Zevran can clearly see the group of thoroughly uncomfortable men and women who all crowd under the archway a few paces back in an attempt to give them as much privacy as they can without leaving the King of Ferelden entirely out of sight.

Iraine reaches down to ruffle Alistair’s hair and smiles at the frown that’s pulling his face tight.

“Please, stop worrying about me. All right? Zev is coming with me, and I’ll have an entire fortress of Grey Wardens to keep me safe once we arrive. Besides,” she adjusts the sword strapped to her back next to the new staff she commissioned to replace the one that broke in half during the battle some months earlier, “you know I _can_ take care of myself.”

Alistair snorts and pats the head of her horse, hands sliding back to rest on her thigh for a second before turning to him. Zevran flashes him a grin and revels in the blush that creeps up Alistair’s neck into his cheeks, just as immediate and disarming as the very first time and ignores the indignant squawk and flutter of movement from the direction of the archway - must be a new guy. He’ll learn.

The two of them ride through the gates and into the countryside, the hulk of Denerim getting smaller and smaller behind them. It’s not a goodbye forever. Once their business in Amaranthine is settled, once Iraine is secure in her position as Warden Commander, once it is all good and stable and boring again, they will return and perhaps look for new adventures to pursue.

This time though, he thinks as he urges his horse to catch up to the other, it would be nice if there was no Blight to chase them all the way through wherever they might go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
